


Hit Me With Your Best Shot

by Jackdaw816



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Crack and Angst, Guns, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death - Jack Harkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:14:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27560569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackdaw816/pseuds/Jackdaw816
Summary: Jack Harkness gets shot... a lot
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness/John Hart
Comments: 13
Kudos: 38





	Hit Me With Your Best Shot

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so forever ago in the Torchwood server we had a conversation about how much Jack gets shot and I started this and then I remembered it today and finished it and I am very sorry

The first time Javic got shot, it was an accident, training exercise gone wrong. It left him swearing in the dirt, clutching at his side. But the cadet who shot him apologized profusely, and the medtech healed him up with only the faintest of scars, so it was okay.

The second and third times, he’s on assignment in WWI. Their job was to take out a certain commander, and it went flawlessly until the commander shot back. His partner dragged him back to base, bleeding from the hip and thigh. He sincerely thought he was a goner. So when he woke up, alive and safe, he made a conscious effort not to get shot again.

Fourth time was a day after the last. He’s barely gotten out of medbay when a senior agent snapped and went guns blazing on the commons. Shoulder shot this time, the worst so far. Javic was certain the universe was fucking with him.

He did the fifth one himself, gun to his temple. Three resets in and Javic figured it’d either get him out or kill him. Either was fine. Instead, he reset with a phantom headache and a deep need for a drink. Six through thirteen followed similarly, him or his partner putting a bullet in his head, just trying to break the monotony.

He stopped counting when they finally broke free. He became numb to it. He became numb to a lot of things. And he kept on getting shot. Ivo liked to joke that he was so hot he attracted men, women, and bullets. The rumors spread, and the other agents started placing bets every time he went out on a mission. He was getting irritated. Then Ivo had an idea.

“I’m not averse to a little foul play,” Javic said, staring down the barrel of Ivo’s pistol. “And you know I love winning bets, fair or not. But you don’t think we could maybe find a better way to scam Theta Squad out of their credits?” Ivo shrugged and didn’t move the gun.

“You’ll be fine. And with the money I’ve wagered on this, hell. I’d take a bullet for that.” Javic raised an eyebrow. 

“You mean the money we’ve got on this?” he said carefully. “I’m not letting you shoot me for nothing.” 

“Yeah, yeah. 50-50, promise. Now, turn around. Looks less staged if I get you from the back,” Ivo said, taking a few steps backward. 

“Does it really have to be the shoulder?” Javic complained, turning to face the far wall. “Why not my thigh? Gotten shot there enough to be realistic.” Ivo chuckled.

“Lotta money in shoulders. Less in thighs. Just consider yourself lucky I didn’t go for the heart or the head.” 

“You like me too much to take me out of the game entirely,” Javic teased. Ivo cocked the gun.

“Hold still so I don’t commit mariticide.” Javic froze, but he trusted Ivo’s aim, even if he didn’t really trust him. If he died, it would be intentional. Javic regretted agreeing to his scheme a half-second before Ivo pulled the trigger.

Two days later, out spending their winnings, Javic had to admit. Totally worth it. They pulled the same trick twice more before the others caught on and the bets were disbanded entirely. He kept getting shot, but he’d already accepted the fact that he wouldn’t live past thirty.

Jack somehow made it to thirty-eight before a Dalek shot him and shook his world to its core. Stuck in 1889, immortal, and with no way home but the slow path, well, he was pissed. He ate a bullet more than once in grief, but to no avail. Then he was forced into Torchwood, and he made a mighty fine bullet shield. He was almost relieved when Alex went nuts and he had to rebuild. He could keep his immortality secret from the new poor saps.

If he scarred, he’d look more like a cheese grater than a human from all the craters. He wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse that he came back artificially perfect, healed of even the old scars. Sometimes, he’d just sit, running his fingers over unblemished skin, trying to remember what if had been before. He’d dig his nails into his skin, trying to make something permanent. It never worked, but Jack relished the pain.

He hired new people, people as broken as he was. Rescued Tosh from a UNIT hellhole, pulled Owen from his grief. Ianto came to him, running from a horror to a new one. Gwen came willingly as well, and though she wasn’t broken, Jack hoped maybe she could mend them.

The bullets kept coming, fewer, but more painful. Suzie shot him through the head, leaving a splitting headache as he watched her kill herself. Owen shot him, the head again, and he woke up to have his lifeforce drained by a being from the pit.

Three days later, he forgave Owen, kissed Ianto, then abandoned them all for his Doctor. He got shot a lot during The Year That Never Was. If he hadn’t lost count already, it would have added hundreds to his tally. As it was, the torture was almost nothing compared to the fact that the Doctor called him wrong. And that he couldn’t fix him.

He was so happy to be back in Cardiff, to find his team alive and well. Even Ivo, sorry,  _ John, _ showing up couldn’t spoil his mood. Granted, getting pushed off the roof wasn’t fun. And almost losing Gwen (and John, he supposed) to a bomb, that was terrifying. And John’s parting words, well, he’d have preferred another bullet.

But life went on. He shot more, he got shot more. But things were normal, well, as normal as they could get. For a while. Then it seemed that his misfortune had rubbed off on his team. Owen got shot and killed, but Jack brought him back, for a while. Then Tosh bled out her life on the Hub floor from one of his brother’s bullets. 

Jack thought he’d felt heartbreak before, but it was nothing compared to coming back from dozens of bullets, and then a sword to the heart, and then thousands of years underground, just to find half his team dead at his brother’s hands and his brother broken beyond repair and his city blown to bits by the man who claimed to love him and they were dead and he couldn’t fix this, no one could.

Ianto found him afterward, bloody, empty gun in his hand, but still alive. Against every damn odd, still alive. He didn’t ask if Jack was okay; he knew he wasn’t. He just gently removed the gun from his hand, quietly brought him to the shower, and diligently scrubbed two thousand years of dirt and blood off of his lover’s skin.

They were okay for a while after that. They weren’t the same, but they were okay. They rebuilt, and they moved on. Then Jack got shot in the back while investigating an alien hitchhiker. And then he got shot by a phantom from his past. And then…

A bullet would have been a blessing.


End file.
